When I walked on the foothills and muddy roads leading to Surander a few weeks ago, the whole village was covered with a white carpet of snow. As my feet crunched into the icy ground, I felt transported by the beauty of the meadows. Birdsong and the sound of waterfalls gave me a sense of the music of nature.

It's water chestnut season in north Kashmir's Bandipora district. During harvest time, which extends from early February to late April, hundreds of villagers set out early in the morning for a day-long trip to pick chestnuts from Wular Lake, one of Asia's largest freshwater lakes.